


A Goddess Returns to Auckland

by ladygray99



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Cross-Posted on LiveJournal, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gen, Goddesses, Gods, New Zealand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 02:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/pseuds/ladygray99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaia was on her way to the pub when Idunn was ripped from her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Goddess Returns to Auckland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViaLethe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViaLethe/gifts).



Gaia was on her way to the pub to meet her flatmates when Idunn was ripped from her. She collapsed in a flash of light on a London sidewalk in front of dozens of people. People stepped over her. She climbed to her feet shivering and trying to breathe before stumbling the few blocks to the pub.

Her flatmates didn't know who she was. 

She got out of there quick, back to the flat, packed her things, and made it to a hostel before her flatmates got back and called the cops. Only when that was done did she climb to the roof of the hostel and call Axl.

"Idunn's gone. What happened? Did something happen? Are you okay? What happened?" It all came from her in a rush.

"Odin found his Frig." A pain twisted in Gaia's chest where Idunn used to be. "The gods of Asgard went home."

"Odin found his Frig," she repeated back to New Zealand. 

"Yeah, she's dating Mike."

"What? Never mind. This is an expensive call. I'm coming home."

"When?"

"I don't know, whenever I can scrounge up the money for a ticket."

It took her longer than she'd hoped. Over two months. She was able to spin a tale at work about how the last nurse ditched and she was transferred in from another ward last minute. "See, my name is already on the schedule," she'd said. A stabbing was wheeled through doors at that moment and everyone became too busy to ask questions.

She briefly moved in with Jared, another Kiwi on his OE. They'd met at a pub her first month in London, got pissed and had a good shag. She found out in the morning, while he was making an amazing breakfast, that he was an old friend of Jerome and Haumia-tiketike, god of wild food and plants. They'd had a bit of a laugh, seen each other a few times, but in the end he was just another god, even if he was from another family. Still, he was the only one in London who remembered her. 

It took three flights with three different airlines, 20 hours' worth of layovers, passport control, customs, and bio security check to put her through the doors into the international arrival terminal at Auckland Airport. 

Axl was there with a big sign. 

**Gaia! Welcome Home!**

Axl's hug felt amazing. It was the hug of a friend, of someone she'd missed who'd missed her. If she could have managed it she would have fallen asleep right there on her feet leaning against him. And she knew he would have probably let her. 

They hit rush hour traffic getting back into the city. "Central government is saying we'll get the funds to have the rail put in to the airport by 2020." So maybe Gaia had been a little spoiled by the London Underground. "But they're going to have all the electric trains up and running by next year."

"I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be done by the[ World Cup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Rugby_World_Cup)."

"Blame Wellington." 

They chatted as if their lives hadn't fundamentally changed. As if some part of who they were wasn't missing. She asked about most of the other Johnsons.

"Smartest thing Mike did was take out a fucking huge fire insurance policy on the bar. Rebuilt the bar then bought a house in Sandringham for a million, put in 40k of renovations that he did himself and flipped it for a million point two at auction just yesterday. He also just bought another place for 800 in Three Kings, total dump. He'll replace the bathroom and it'll go for a million as well." 

"How's Olaf?"

"Surfing and shagging."

"So the same."

"Pretty much."

"And how's Ty?"

"Smart. Smartest Johnson. Made a video with Dawn so when she forgot him he just delivered the video with a batch of cupcakes. They hardly missed a step. Of course they didn't exactly take the time to explain Anders." Axl stumbled a bit. Gaia looked out the window. She could just make out [ One Tree Hill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Tree_Hill,_New_Zealand) in the distance as they crawled through Mangere. Axl cleared his throat a bit. "All of Anders' clients forgot who he was so Dawn is basically running the business."

"Probably for the best." She didn't want to talk about Anders. She didn't even want to think about him. She'd done that enough already.

They talked a bit about London. A bit about the quick holiday she'd taken to Spain. They talked about how [JK](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kirwan_%28rugby%29) was handling the [Blues](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_blues) and what a totally crap year the [Black Caps](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_caps) were going to have, even though Gaia wasn't really into cricket. 

The house was just as she had left it with the faded prayer flags out front; the universal symbol of a student flat put there many years before any of them moved in. They shifted in the morning breeze sending prayers to Gaia was never sure who but she was now tempted to take them down in case they were giving some poor mortal god in Tibet a nonstop headache. 

"Zeb," Axl called out as the pushed through the still rickety door. Zeb came out of the kitchen and Gaia actually felt a little bit more weight lift from her shoulders. "Zeb, this is my friend Gaia who I was telling you about. She might be interested in the spare room.

"Sweet, nice to meet you." Gaia shook his hand smidge disappointed. Zeb had been so much a part of the whole mess she'd half-forgotten he was just a regular human and would forget her as well. After all he'd been Odin's loyal Freki. It hardly seemed fair. 

"Nice to meet you." Gaia hadn't really put a lot of thought into where she was going to live. She had just known she needed to get back home.

The no longer goddesses got wind that she was back and took her out on the piss avoiding Mike's bar. They passed out on the amazingly uncomfortable and very artistic benches next to the Ferry building just as the morning commute started.

She settled in quickly after that. She was still on file at the hospital and got her job back easy enough. It didn't matter that no one remembered her. With a hospital as big as Auckland no one noticed a new junior nurse in the emergency ward. She and Axl pretended like the whole Frig, Idunn, Bragie, engagement mess didn't happen. Like she'd just gone on her OE because that's what people do at her age. Most of the Johnsons dropped by to say hello at some point, carefully side stepping the mess as well.

She didn't even know if Anders knew she was back in town. The Johnsons were good at keeping secrets from each other.

In the end it didn't matter, Anders found her, or really she found him sitting on a hospital bed with a dislocated shoulder and scrapped up leg from a low speed, Friday night, hit and run. Plus a moderate blood alcohol level of his own.

"Gaia!"

"Shit." She should have looked at the paperwork first. 

"Gaia. I didn't know you were back in town. Does Axl know? Of course Axl knows, the little shit didn't tell me."

"Here." She pushed a clipboard and ballpoint pen she knew was half dry at him. "Fill out these forms and I'll be back in a bit."

"Don't you want me to take off my shirt so you can look at my shoulder?"

"I'll save that for the doctor." She turned to leave. He grabbed for her wrist. With a brush of fingers she remembered in stunning detail all of it, every touch and kiss and brutal thrust. She also remembered the knot of hate deep in her stomach. "Seriously Anders, I will call our biggest and most foul tempered orderly to strap you down."

He let go of her wrist. "Hey, if I'd known you'd liked it kinky I could have…"

She pushed her way past the curtains before waving over one of the more senior nurses. "I need you to take bed six, I will owe you a solid."

"What's wrong with bed six?"

Ander's popped his head out from behind the curtains. "You know I've had a lot of completely meaningless sex in my life and we were in the top five, at least. I mean for being out of our heads we were pretty fucking amazing."

Gaia squeezed her eyes shut. "He has a terminal case of being a complete douchbag." 

The other nurse took the file. "I need Saturday afternoon off."

"Done."

~

There weren't many places in the city that quietly served hard alcohol at six thirty in the morning but if you were a nurse you knew where to find them. Gaia put back a shot of vodka. She knew she could probably go to Mike's, say the name Anders, and drink for free but she honestly didn't want anything to do with any Johnson. All night there had been flashes of memories, Anders' hands on her waist, his lips on her neck. And just like those mornings after she'd been stuck between aroused and sick.

She waved for another shot. It arrived just as Anders' sat down next to her. "What the fuck are you doing here, Anders? Did you follow me or something?"

"Please, do you honestly think I don't know where night nurses go to drink in this town." Gaia threw back her drink and got up to leave. "Hold on. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what, embarrassing me? Screwing up my friendship with Axl? How about my engagement? How about letting god hunters right into the middle of us so I end up Idunn instead of Frig? Fuck, I would have taken Papatuanuku over dealing with you."

"Okay, in my defense only one of those things was entirely my fault and I'll have you know Axl tried to kill me when he found out."

"Oh shut it Anders."

"I'm serious. He got his Odin on, chucked me clean across Mike's bar. If Michele hadn't been juiced up you would have been lusting after some 21 year old Bragi, who for all we know might have been some ugly ass bastard. I mean at least with me you had something nice to look at."

"How exactly have you managed to survive the last few months without the ability to talk people out of kicking your ass?"

"I'm quick on my feet and did I mention your ex fiancé, my own brother tried to, no actually did, kill me. I mean for a dude who was supposed to be looking for his Frig he still had a thing for you."

Gaia looked down at the chipped wood of the bar top. Someone had tried to carve a name into it at some point but only got as far as Ch. She'd known she was hurting Axl while she was in Anders' bed. She knew she hurt him as the cab pulled away to take her to the airport. She knew she hurt him those first few weeks when she let all his calls go to voice mail then canceled the number. And she hurt herself every time the phone rang those first few weeks with a New Zealand number and Idunn burned in her hoping to hear the voice of her Bragi.

"He really tried to kill you?"

"Tried and did."

"Good. Half the women in Auckland would have probably shown up to spit on your grave."

"You're too kind. Never got as far as half. It's a big city. Maybe a quarter of them." He reached out and touched her wrist again. She clamped her teeth together. Idunn was long gone but she'd left a mark like a burned on shadow. She'd left the memory of desire and Gaia hated it. "You know Bragi is back up in Asgard, probably getting godly wedgies, and I got to say I miss him, life has gotten way duller, but at least he's got his Idunn and they are screwing each other's brains out every spare second."

"Good for them."

Anders signaled for two drinks. "So, since my own loving family apparently is keeping things from me, again, you and Axl back together?"

"You know I can put secret nurse code in your NHS file so every injection or IV you get for the rest of your life will be done by a trainee."

Anders winced. "Gaia, Gaia, Gaia, what happened to that nice girl from Waiheke?"

"She got screwed by a couple of gods." 

~

Axl was already gone for the day by the time she got home. She closed the curtains and tried to sleep instead weaving in and out of drunken half dreams, memories, and hallucinations. Sometimes Anders was in her bed, other times Axl, briefly it was the boy she'd kissed on Little Oneroa Beach when she was 14 and it was just starting to rain. 

She woke up hung-over, frustrated, and idly wondering if Jerome had found his Papatuanuku. She supposed something pretty obvious would have happened if he had. 

Axl was home and chopping vegetables for Zeb who had decided to backtrack his life and enroll in cooking school. She couldn't exactly picture Zeb as some sort of high end celebrity chef but flat meals had gotten a lot better.

"Morning." Zeb greeted her despite the sun starting to set. "How was work?"

"Long, had to deal with a real asshole."

"Anyone you need me to beat up for you?" Axl asked, smiling.

She smiled back. The memory of Idunn missed her Bragi but Gaia had missed Axl for his friendship if nothing else. "Don't worry, it got taken care of."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm from Auckland so it's always been a bit of an extra character for me in The Almighty Johnsons. The entrance to Mike's bar was literally right around the corner from my last flat (sadly there isn't actually a bar there), I've eaten fish and chips in the same park where Dawn and Olaf ate hash cookies, and I saw them filming a few times just on my way to work. Because of that I just couldn't help but put in some local Auckland stuff but I've put reference links in for certain things. Nothing plot critical, just a little flavor.
> 
> And I'm not even slightly exaggerating the housing prices. Auckland is currently one of the least affordable places to buy a house as compared to income on the planet. The property bubble never burst and it's ranked just behind cities like London and Tokyo. My first shitty flat that was freezing cold, had mold, mice, and rats was sold by my old landlord for a million and that was a few years back. That's probably the least believable thing about Almighty Johnsons; Axl and Zeb's place is exactly the type of house that is getting flipped for major money.


End file.
